Falls

Truly, he’s never considered the concept of ghosts, and as soon as the thought occurs to him he’s disinclined to even believe it. Luckily his new companion doesn’t take his question too seriously. He grins at her teasing, wrinkling his nostrils at her but choosing to hold his tongue and let her answer his own volley of questions rather than interrupt with anything more than a shake of his great pale head. He listens closely, looking for an opportunity to sling another round of banter at her, but sobers at what she relays. The mare’s energy makes her seem young, yes, but not naive. All things considered, her complaints about the Lagoon are innocent, and all issues he’s dealt with himself when he was a resident there. He can’t claim to know what a mare’s experience in the Lagoon must be like but he can imagine, and he knows enough to feel shame for the havoc his once-kin have wrought and relief that this mare appears to have suffered nothing worse than discomfort brought upon only by the land itself and not the stallions residing within its borders.

“I lived there, once, and found it much the same as you describe. Sticky and boring,” he nods, then grins, though the expression feels heavy on his lips. “Two very good reasons not to make it a permanent home.” His next question comes reflexively, as if scratching a sudden itch. “I know a couple of colts from the Lagoon. What’s your crazy friend’s name?” He doesn’t imagine that sort of adjective could easily be applied to Nattergal; the bay dun boy had been level-headed even after his sister arrived bearing her news. Thinking of the twins draws Kendry’s gaze in the direction of the Lagoon and he wonders how Nattergal is faring. Kendry feels guilty for departing so soon after the boy joined the bachelorhood, but there had been no help for it.

And now?

The perlino stallion snorts lightly and swings his vivid blue eyes back to the steel-gray mare, dismissing that distraction in favor of his current company. “I’m Kendry, by the way. Have you wandered very far yet? I’ll join you, if you’d like. I know all the best places on the Crossing.” As he waits for the mare’s response he tries to anticipate what she might like most to see based on what little he knows of her. There’s the Falls themselves, of course, grand all on their own but best viewed from atop a shaded overhang he is quite familiar with— she might enjoy the challenge of the rocky trails leading to it. Or maybe her interests lie closer to the ocean. There’s a particular stretch of beach he favors where the sand gives way to broad, flat-topped rock, always filled with interesting little tidepools and whatever other strangeness the waters wash onto shore. Kendry’s got a list.